My Blog

Retirement. Publishers, thank you for the many years of reading pleasure you gave me, but all good things must come to an end. Due to failing eyesight I am forced to retire. I can no longer review your books, and any that you send will be donated to the local library, unread. Do not send any more. I can only read for a couple hours every day, and this does not allow me to finish a book in reasonable time. I will be devoting time to my own books from now on, and reading on a personal level. Books that interest me. I prefer paperbacks and hardbacks, not eBooks. My eyesight has been failing the last few years, and I cannot handle hundreds of review books any more. My books are still available for review. Anyone interested in reviewing any of them, they are found in the Link to Tom’s Books On Amazon. Contact me for pdf copies at fadingshadows40@gmail.com

Most
of my life I have had a deep interest in paleontology and entomology. In
school, while we were reading Shakespeare, I was thinking about bugs. And
during History class, I wondered what new discovery was being uncovered in
fossil beds around the world. The only reason I passed 9th grade
History in the 9th Grade was due to my artistic talent at the time.
The teacher asked me to draw Hannibal crossing the Alps with his elephants.

I
knew I wanted to write as far back as age ten, when I wrote a comic book story.
Of course, it was terrible, but the fire was there. Then about age 25, while
stationed in France, I started creating plots and characters, and putting them
on paper. Naturally, the stories involved animals. One plot eventually became
the Jur series several years later. I was finally living my dream, and creating
stories to be read.

One
of my favorite comic strips is Luann, and while reading the strip one day, I
began thinking, why does’t that evil little Elvis guy hire a scientist to build
a time machine, and accidentally send Luann and her girlfriends, Delta and
Bernice back in time. Then someone could go after them, naturally. Well, I
figured that would never happen, but I liked the idea. And that meant I started
thinking about writing it myself, only not with Luann and her friends, but with
girls in their mold.

Thus,
“Three Go Back” was conceived. I set my tale in the future, where the common
transportation system was teleport machines. My problem was coming up with the
time machine angle for the story. Okay, so what if my characters were
teleporting at the same time a magnetic solar flare struck the planet, burning
out the teleport circuits, and turning it into a time machine? Bang. That became my gimmick.

So
using those concepts, my story almost wrote itself. My big problem was finding
a publisher. You see, I used scientific names for the animals they encounter in
their journey back through time, and publishers told me they would never find
an editor who knew if the names were real, or misspelled, and were in the
correct time period. They kindly but firmly rejected the story. I sent a
proposal to Barbara Custer at Night To Dawn, who knew my background in
prehistoric animal life, and my extensive study on the subject, and she took a
chance. Actually, anyone with a computer can type the names I use and do a Google
search, and it will show the data on any creature. But I understood the publishers’
decision to reject the book because of the editing difficulties. It can add a
lot of work to an editor’s already hectic job. And you do come upon variation
of names, which can confuse you.

I
live in the Permian Basin of Texas, which is an area rich in Permian fossils.
The Permian Period in our prehistory was over 250 million years ago, or roughly
60 million years before the dinosaurs, so this area is famous for reptiles and
amphibians. There is an important dig in our area, the Craddock Redbeds, and
Dr. Bakkar, a famous paleontologist brings a team up from the Houston Museum of
Natural Sciences every year. Our town, Seymour even has a reptile/amphibian
named after it – the Seymouria. So my childhood was naturally drawn towards the
study, and that’s why I write so much about prehistoric life. They do say to
write what you know and love.

Besides
“Three Go Back”, and other novels set in prehistoric times, I also write action
and adventure novels in the tradition of the pulp magazines of the 1930s and
‘40s, a period I also love. My interest varies from western to detective and
space ships. Whether in the far-flung galactic worlds of the future, or the
eons in our past, to the modern day mystery, I love the written word, and enjoy
telling a story. I hope you will read my stories, and I’m sure you will see
that love I project into my characters.

I was born in 1940, going through
elementary schools in Seymour and Wichita Falls, Texas. My dad was a cowboy and
cook, and often worked at each profession, which required a lot of moves. He
wanted me to follow in his footsteps, but I had more of a studious nature, and
didn’t want to spend my life on farms and ranches. I was different from most
kids my age, I didn’t want to be a cowboy, and never liked riding horses. My
family lived something of an itinerant’s lifestyle, and we never stayed in one
place long enough for me to develop friendships. In high school I was working
on the ranch my dad was foreman of while other high school students my age were
dating.

When I turned 18, I joined the Army
as an MP, and was off to see the world, never regretting my decision to leave
the life my family had. I had some pretty good assignments, such as a
three-year tour in France, but then there was a one-year period patrolling the
DMZ between North and South Korea under fire, and 13 months in Vietnam. But I
did enjoy my twenty years as a military cop, and took some college courses in
the process.

After retirement, my wife, Ginger
and I started FADING SHADOWS, a small press imprint, publishing a hobby
magazine, ECHOES, for the next twenty years, as well as half a dozen genre
fiction titles, which re-fired my interest in writing.

Today I leave the publishing for
others, and continue my love of writing. It has been a good life, and I in no
way degrade those men and women on ranches and farms. It just wasn’t a life for
me.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Copies of the latest issue of The Pulpster, are now available
from Mike Chomko, Books. The 22nd issue of the
award-winning program book, its biggest number yet, is the work of William
Lampkin, administrator of the popular ThePulp.Net.
Although Bill has designed The Pulpster since 2008, this is his first
year as editor of the fanzine.

Like PulpFest 2013, The Pulpster #22 celebrates the 80th
anniversary of the pulp hero boom of 1933, the 90th anniversary of Weird
Tales, and the 100th anniversary of Fu Manchu. Leading off the magazine is
a short article explaining how the August 1931 issue of “The Unique Magazine”
sent a killer to the electric chair; next, PulpFest organizer Mike
Chomko and Doc Savage author Will Murray look at the pulp heroes of
1933; William Preston, discusses his “Old Man” stories, inspired by Lester
Dent’s Man of Bronze, while Murray returns with “On Writing Skull Island;”
Echoes publisher and “New Pulp” author Tom Johnson explores Johnston
McCulley’s “Rollicking Rogue” series, a precursor to the great pulp heroes; the
writer authorized to continue the Fu Manchu series, William Patrick Maynard,
details his longterm relationship with Rohmer’s devil doctor and Nathan Vernon
Madison examines early yellow peril fiction found in dime novels and story
papers; the longtime Street & Smith editor, Daisy Bacon, is profiled by
Laurie Powers and the early science-fiction pioneer, Homer Eon Flint, is discussed
by his granddaughter, Vella Munn; Monte Herridge explores Richard Sales’ Daffy
Dill stories, a long-running series that appeared in Detective Fiction
Weekly while Battered Silicon
publisher and Sherlock Holmes expert, George Vanderburgh, offers a glimpse at
the personal papers of H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith; and closing out
the issue is Pulpster editor emeritus Tony Davis’ “Final Chapters.”

With 52 pages, including ten in color, The Pulpster is a real
steal at $11, which includes first class postage for buyers in the United
States. Buyers outside the United States will pay more. Write to Mike Chomko at
mike@pulpfest.com and
order your copy today.

The cover art for The Pulpster #22 is the work of Walter M.
Baumhofer. It originally graced the front cover to the July 1935 issue of Doc
Savage Magazine which featured “Quest of Qui” as its lead novel.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

The latest issue of this great Doc Savage fan
magazine has a nice article (with color cover reproductions) about the Doc
Savage comic books by Matthew Hood, plus an art portfolio of the fantastic
artist, Ron Wilber, illustrated Doc Savage and each of his Fabulous Five. None
of this issue to be missed. As usual, this long running magazine continues to
bring the best articles and artwork on Doc Savage in the pulp community.
Published three times a year at Green Eagle Publications, 2900 Standiford Ave
16B, PMB 136, Modesto, California 95350. $15.00 for three issue subscription in
the US.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

This is the sequel to “Dead Anyway”, the novel
that introduced Arthur Cathcart. In the previous novel, his wife had been
murdered, and Arthur shot in the head and left for dead. His sister, a doctor,
nursed him back to health, but left him dead on records so the killers would
not return for him. In that story, he tracked the killers down, but being a
person who hates leaving questions unanswered, in “Cries of The Lost” he goes
searching for the reason his wife was murdered. With him now is Natsumi
Fitzgerald. They travel from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean, and finally
back to the US, every step of the way being chased by two opposing forces, as
well as the F.B.I. The only clue is a coded message left on a Flash Drive in a
safety deposit box in Grand Cayman.

This is a non-stop thriller from the first page
to the last, filled with danger and death. Coming together at the end with
assistance from gangsters before Cathcart unravels the mystery.